The Blackmail Marriage

It had been eight years since she had last felt his mouth against hers, since she had last tasted the sweet savagery of his kiss, since she had last felt the shocking pleasure of the hardness of his body, all lean muscle and bone, against her own, and in those eight years she had, she had believed, taught herself to forget the pleasure her foolish, immature self had felt at his touch, and to remember instead the corrosive pain of her disillusionment and humiliation.

And yet…and yet…

Some instincts…some senses…some memories were perhaps so deeply etched on a person’s consciousness that nothing could ever erase them.

Her lips softened and parted, her brain clouded by a dizzying swarm of disempowering pleasure. A feeling like an electric shock jolted through her, heightening every one of her senses.

Desire, pain, anger—she could feel them all, and could have wept tears of aching anguish for the girl she had been and the memories Luc was forcing on her. It wasn’t fair that he should do this to her—but then, when had Luc ever been fair? When had he ever done anything that wasn’t motivated entirely by self-interest? He had taken her to his bed because he had desired her and then he had rejected her, dismissed her from his life like a toy he had grown bored with.

‘No!’

Frantically, Carrie tried to pull away, but Luc was too powerful for her. His mouth possessed hers with an easy strength, his tongue reinforcing his control of the situation, snaking between her lips, thrusting powerfully into the tender, vulnerable warmth she was trying to withhold from him.

The fog clouding her brain became a white-out of sheeting panic. She should not be feeling like this. She lifted her hands and pushed against Luc’s chest, at the same time wrenching her mouth from beneath his. Abruptly he released her, freeing her to drag air into her aching lungs.

‘Odd. You still kiss like an innocent.’

The way he was looking at her made Carrie’s stomach lurch with anxiety. That steely grey gaze was far too sharp and penetrating.

Defensively she snapped back at him, ‘Actually, I wasn’t doing any kissing. But of course it’s typical of you, Luc, that you were too intent on doing what you wanted to notice. You are the last man I would ever want to kiss. In fact, you are the last man I would ever want in any way at all.’

‘Really?’ His tone was even more sardonic than the look he was giving her. ‘That’s not what this says,’ he told her mercilessly, and he reached out and very deliberately ran his finger down the curve of her breast, to where her nipple jutted tightly against the fabric of her tee shirt.

Carrie’s face flamed in angry humiliation.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ she told him fiercely, pushing his hand away. ‘I—’

‘You what?’ Luc challenged her ‘You react to every man who touches you in that way? Well, let me warn you, Carrie, that from now on, for as long as our marriage lasts, there will be no other men in either your life or your bed.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do—’ Carrie began, but Luc stopped her immediately,

‘You have no option other than to do as I say, Carrie,’ he said gently, but there was no gentleness in his eyes, just a hard, implacable determination that warned her he meant every word he was saying. ‘Because if you don’t, both you and your brother…’

She couldn’t allow him to carry out his threats against Harry, Carrie acknowledged, no matter how strong her feelings of outrage and disgust towards him were.

‘Very well,’ she told him through gritted teeth. ‘As you say, it seems that I have no option, Luc. But I promise you that I shall hate every single day, every single minute, every single second I spend shackled to you, and I shall do my utmost to make sure that you hate them too.’

‘My charming wife-to-be…so loving, so tender, so complaisant.’ Luc taunted her. ‘I am sure that ours shall be a match made in—’

‘Hell,’ Carrie supplied savagely for him.

‘So much passion! But then, you always were…passionate.’

The look he was giving her was an open insult, but somehow Carrie managed to bite back the words she was longing to throw at him.

CHAPTER THREE

THE soft swish of her bedroom curtains being opened followed by a bright shaft of morning sunlight woke Carrie from the sleep she had only finally fallen into a couple of hours previously. For most of the night she’d been kept awake by a turbulent inner warfare in which her instinct for self-preservation had battled with her lifelong elder sister instinct to protect her younger brother—and lost! She had eventually fallen into an exhausted sleep, knowing that she could not expose Harry to Luc’s diabolic cruelty!

Her mouth compressed now as she was dragged back into the dilemma which had tormented her all through the previous evening and into the soul-searching long night.

Nothing would have given her a greater sense of satisfaction or…or fierce justification than to expose Luc for what he was: to state publicly the contempt she held him in and to give him a taste of just how it felt to be helpless within someone else’s power, devoid of pride and self-respect. But how could she, knowing the power he had to destroy her younger brother?

It was not the farce of marriage itself that bothered her; she knew Luc well enough to know that he meant exactly what he had implied by that throw-away comment about modern marriages being of short duration. Once Luc’s purpose was served their marriage would be brought to a very swift and uncompromising end, and of course it would not be a marriage at all, merely a pretence to suit Luc’s own ends.

No, it was the fact that he had the power to force her to do as he wished that she hated, the fact that once again she was allowing herself to be used and manipulated to suit him!

The maid had finished opening the curtains and was standing at a respectful distance from her bed.

‘My name is Benita. I am to be your maid. If you wish to have breakfast here in your suite…’

Her English was perfect, if slightly stilted—it had been Luc who, during the years of his minority, had insisted that S’Antander’s schools taught all its pupils English as a second language. Even then he had been strong-willed enough to oppose the old-fashioned views of the Regency of Ruling Elders, who had felt that such a course was an unnecessary expense.

‘S’Antander is a very small country,’ he had told them. ‘It is only to be expected that many of my people will want to go and live and work in the wider world, and when they do it is only right that they should be equipped with the means to do so. They must have the opportunity of learning a second language!’

Carrie remembered sardonically now how much she had admired him for his stance when her father had related the episode to her! But at that time, of course, she had been only too inclined to admire anything and everything that Luc did. As well as admiring Luc himself. Admiring? She had adored him, worshipped him…’

‘Thank you, Benita. Breakfast would be—’ she began, and then stopped speaking as the door to her bedroom was thrust open and Luc strode in.

The maid, round-eyed and pink-cheeked, took one look at him, dipped a nervous little curtsy and fled, leaving Carrie to glare unwelcomingly at him and to curse the fact that she had not seen fit to pack something to sleep in!

The beautifully soft towelling robe she had found in her bathroom and left last night on the chair beside the huge six foot square bed she was now occupying had already been removed—no doubt by the attentive maid!

A little unexpectedly Luc was wearing a body-hugging white tee shirt, a pair of easy fitting jogging bottoms and running shoes.

She remembered that he had always been insistent on adopting a healthy lifestyle. His own private suite of rooms included its own indoor swimming pool, and he was a virtually championship class skier and an Oxford Blue.

Carrie well remembered the intoxication of crewing for him on board his racing yacht, and recalled that he had even played polo for a while, whilst at university in England.

But though he might work to keep healthily fit, it was Mother Nature who had originally given him his superbly muscled and even more superbly male body, Carrie decided grimly. She was the one who was responsible for the havoc that Luc created, the desire and wanton longing he aroused so easily in Carrie’s own sex.

Put Luc in any kind of clothes and any kind of setting, no matter how humble, and he would immediately stand out and catch women’s eyes.

Of course she wasn’t the least bit impressed by the air of arrogant superiority that cloaked him—quite the opposite. Nor was she susceptible enough to have her heart almost stop beating at the very thought of him wearing the dress uniform that denoted his position as the Commander of the country’s small military force, never mind actually seeing him doing so!

Her days of feeling her insides melt with a hot rush of desire brought on by the thought of seeing Luc dressed in a pair of shiny top boots, tight-fitting trousers, white trousers and a military-style jacket of rich blue with yards of heavy gold braid were long since over!

She could still remember, though, how Luc had teased her by offering to prove to her that the impressive jacket was worn next to bare skin.

However, there was nothing remotely teasing in his voice now as he told her sharply, ‘Our betrothal is to be announced at noon today, in the castle square, along with the date of our wedding…Oh, and my cousin Jay has invited us to join him on his yacht this evening, for an informal celebration of our betrothal. The press will be informed that, in view of the rekindling of our passion for one another, we could not bear the thought of a lengthy engagement.’

‘So you still intend to go ahead with this farce?’ Carrie challenged him fiercely. ‘I should have thought that a night of sensible reflection would have shown you—’ she went on loftily, only to be stopped as Luc advanced towards the bed.

‘You haven’t changed, have you, Catherine? You still like playing dangerous games. When you were a teenager it was obvious what you hoped to achieve, but I do not understand just what it is you expect to gain by baiting me now. Unless, of course…’

As he waited Carrie felt her face begin to burn. It was true that when she was younger she had innocently attempted to provoke a masculine reaction of desire from him, but for him to throw that at her now—!

‘You are despicable, Luc,’ she threw at him, enraged. ‘Totally and utterly despicable!’

Although he shrugged her comment aside, Carrie could see the glint in his eyes.

‘You have, I trust, something suitable to wear? A formal business suit, perhaps, in view of your career? You know, Carrie, I must say how surprised I was to learn what an excellent degree you obtained, in view of the lifestyle you led at university. You obviously have your father’s flair for economics, although I suspect from the tone of your articles that you are more in sympathy with the views of certain young hotheads amongst my own people than those of the establishment. But then you always were an intensely passionate creature.’

‘No, Luc,’ Carrie corrected him bitterly. ‘What I was was a foolishly vulnerable young girl. But fortunately I had the good sense to realise how empty and…and valueless the relationship we had was.’

Carrie watched as his mouth thinned. It surprised her that he actually knew so much about her, but presumably her father had informed him of what she was doing.

‘Be careful,’ he warned her silkily, ‘otherwise I might be tempted to show you that there could be certain aspects of a relationship between us that you—’

‘No way! Never!’ Carrie denied vehemently. ‘I might once have been foolish enough to…but I was very quickly cured of that error of judgement, Luc.’

‘In the arms and the beds of the other men you gave yourself to so eagerly when you left here for university?’

‘How dare you presume to speak so sanctimoniously about my sexual history? Every summer the glossy magazines carry a new story about your latest piece of ‘‘arm candy’’, Luc—models, actresses, pop singers…’

‘The people you are talking about are new tax exile residents to this country. It’s not my fault if the popular press chooses to deliberately misconstrue matters, and besides, it is not—’

‘My business?’ Carrie finished for him. ‘No, it isn’t, and neither is my sexual past any business of yours!’

Not for anything would she have him know of her stubborn insistence on reading each word published in those magazines, describing the beauty of his female companion and his attentiveness towards her. But it had only been to reinforce to herself how much better off she was without him!

And as for his comments about her clothes! Well, yes, she did have a plain, businesslike designer suit in her case!

‘Your sexual past might not be my business, but so far as your sexual present and future is concerned, Carrie, I warn you now—’

‘You warn me! You might think you can act however you want in this…this soap operetta of a country of yours, Luc,’ Carrie began furiously, pushing herself up in the bed in a sudden flurry of angry activity, ‘but there is no way—’

Halfway through gesturing vigorously to underline her point, Carrie suddenly realised that the bedclothes were sliding off her body.

Automatically she made a quick, protective dive for them. But Luc beat her to it, his lean fingers tanned, nails immaculate but wholly masculine, curling round the edge of the covers and wresting them away from her, holding them flat to the bed.

His grey gaze on hers pinned her into immobility.

Carrie could feel the colour come and go in her face as it burned with furious emotions.

‘So, the girl I remember slept in a nightshirt printed with puppy dogs and bows. Only a very sensual and sexually confident woman sleeps naked in a strange bed, Carrie.’

‘Or one who just happens to have forgotten to pack her nightdress,’ Carrie returned acidly.

She could feel the warmth of the sunshine on her bare breasts.

‘You don’t sunbathe topless.’

Now Carrie could feel her face really burning. How had he managed to notice that, when so far as she was aware he hadn’t even glanced at her breasts? He had kept his gaze fixed on hers, as though her body was of so little interest to him than it didn’t even merit a brief look!

‘My last holiday was in America. They don’t favour topless sunbathing at the resort where I stayed.’

‘So your partner was able to enjoy the knowledge that only he was able to fully view your body?’

‘My ‘‘partner’’, as it happened, was a woman-friend,’ Carrie told him pithily, her eyes flashing storm signals at him. ‘Not that it would have been any of your business if it had not been.’

So why had she felt such a furious need to leap to the defence of her virtue? Carrie wondered grimly. It didn’t matter what Luc thought of her any more, did it? And besides, as she had just reminded him, he hardly lived like a monk, did he? At least not if the popular press were to be believed!

Angrily she tugged hard on the bedclothes, trying to drag them upwards to cover her naked breasts. When Luc refused to allow her to do so Carrie took refuge in the only protection left to her: the acid sharpness of her contempt.

‘I suppose there’s something of the voyeur in all men, a sort of base instinct, but I must say that I’m surprised to see it surfacing in you, Luc. After all, you’ve always made it quite your thing to elevate yourself to a higher and more rarefied plane than everyone else, haven’t you? Your Serene Highness!’

Luc cast her a narrow-eyed look, and she was satisfied to discover that her words had made an impact as she read the flicker of grim male fury in his eyes. But retaliation was swift and merciless as he dropped his gaze to her breasts and studied them with an insolent thoroughness that made her face burn. ‘You obviously wanted to flaunt yourself in front of me. I didn’t want to—’

Carrie stopped him angrily. ‘Flaunt myself? You’ve got to be joking.’

He frowned, suddenly and unexpectedly releasing the bedcovers to slide back his jacket cuff and glance at the elegant gold watch he was wearing.

‘You have two hours in which to have breakfast and get yourself ready. I have some telephone calls to make.’

Carrie gaped at him, thrown by his abrupt change in demeanour, only realising as he started to turn away from her that she had not taken the opportunity to cover herself up.

Pink-cheeked, she quickly did so.

‘We shall meet in the Green Salon at eleven-thirty,’ Luc told her coolly. ‘My press secretary is already preparing the announcement of our betrothal.’

Carrie gave a small sigh of satisfaction as she studied her reflection in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dressing room of her suite.

Her classic tailored suit was perfect for such an occasion, if perhaps a little bit on the formal side.

A wide grin curled her lips and made her look like a naughty urchin.

And that was why the suit was still hanging in the closet whilst she was wearing a pair of clean but very old and very faded narrow-fitting jeans topped with a tee shirt cropped just above her waist to display a couple of taut, creamy, warm inches of bare female skin.

A much heavier application of mascara than she would ever have normally worn, combined with a very pale pink lipstick and enough product in her hair to glue wallpaper, had transformed her from her normal sleek, soignée self into a very passable replica of the kind of hip-swinging, head-turning modern and feisty ladette currently so much in vogue on the celebrity circuit.

It was the kind of look she would never normally have adopted, and Luc was bound to loathe it, she decided gleefully.

Twenty-five past eleven. She had timed it perfectly!

Grinning to herself, she opened the door to her suite and stepped into the corridor.

The Green Salon was one of the less formal of the palace’s state rooms, if such a description could be applied to a room decorated with enough gilt rococo and plasterwork to make one’s jaw drop. The carpets had been made at the famous Aubusson factory, especially to match the design of the plasterwork ceiling, and the room had two sets of double French doors which opened out onto an elegant balcony which in turn overlooked the beautiful private gardens enclosed by the walls of the castle. On formal occasions liveried footmen were posted either side the elegant double doors, as with the other formal state rooms.

Carrie was relishing the impact her appearance was likely to have on Luc. Her behaviour might be childish, but it was the only way she had of demonstrating how she felt about what he was doing—the only way she had of rebelling against it and him without hurting her brother.

She had almost reached the bottom of the flight of stairs that swept down to the impressive oval hall when the double doors to the Green Salon were thrust open and Luc strode out, coming to an abrupt halt as he saw her.

For a moment neither of them moved. Carrie could see the fury in Luc’s eyes, and a tiny quiver of triumph shot through her.

It was like watching a storm approach, she acknowledged, and a fine shiver galvanised her flesh. She had that same sense of smelling sulphur in the air, of feeling unmistakable threatening tension and brooding danger; feeling the tiny hairs lifting at the back of her neck.

‘Is this some kind of a joke?’

The question was delivered in tone so flat that it immediately increased the tension by several notches.

‘Excuse me?’ Carrie feigned innocent ignorance, but the light of battle was fierily visible in her eyes.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ Luc snapped icily. ‘Your clothes—!’

‘Are my clothes.’ Carrie stopped him sharply. ‘These are my clothes, Luc,’ she repeated, ‘and this is me. I don’t intend to change either to suit you. You can take me or leave me, as you wish. It was your choice to blackmail me into this abhorrent betrothal and marriage, but how I dress is my choice! Oh, and I still prefer Carrie to Catherine, Luc. It may not be as formal, but it’s a name I’m comfortable with.’

Carrie watched at his mouth compressed.

‘I have seen the photograph accompanying your articles, Carrie, and I know perfectly well that this is not how you normally appear in public. Your hair…’

Carrie frowned. He had seen her work…read it? Something unwanted and dangerous was trying to flower into painful life inside her. Fiercely she smothered it.

‘You don’t like it?’ She threw him a challenging look and tossed her head. ‘It’s the latest thing.’

‘It looks as though you’ve emptied a pot of wallpaper paste on it,’ Luc told her uncompromisingly, ‘and you certainly can’t appear in front of my people looking like that. They would be affronted…insulted…’

‘Luc…What are you doing? Luc, let go of me,’ Carrie demanded when he suddenly strode towards her and took hold of her arm, turning her round and almost marching her back up the stairs.

‘If you don’t stop it I shall pick you up and carry you bodily, Catherine,’ he warned her, when she continued to struggle.

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